Another life
by qwertysweetea
Summary: Enjolras and Éponine share an evening playing a rather intense game of 1830's style twenty questions or rather, interrogating each other. They find out how passionate each other are towards their causes, France and Marius, and Enjolras makes a promise to Éponine. Enjolras/Patria, one-sided Éponine/Marius, and of course Enjolras/Éponine.


Based off the musical/film more than the book.

Enjolras/Patria, one-sided Éponine/Marius, and slight Enjolras/Éponine

Disclaimer: I do not own nor claim to own Les Miserable or any characters and places associated with Victor Hugo's novel, any screen or stage adaptations and musical soundtracks. No profit is made from the writing for this fanfiction.

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Enjolras sat at one of the tables on the upper floor of the café Musain. The rest of the students had long since vacated, as the night had truly settled in. It was the night before Lamarque's funeral. He took a swig from the murky glass bottle in his hands and his eyes grazed over the piles of ammunition on the tables, though he was too lost in thoughts of what was to come.

He sniffed back the few tears that threatened to form in his eyes thinking about Lamarque. It wasn't so much that the General had died. It was the sadness that came with knowing he died not seeing the France that he had tried to create, that he would not be alive to see the changes they would make themselves a few day from then when they built their barricade. For Enjolras, a man who had spent his few university years dissolved in the fight for the liberation of the French masses, dying without knowing a difference, was hard to swallow. He tried to find comfort in the fact that Lamarque's death will be the thing to push all their planning to the end just like he found comfort that his own death would bring along the change to the poor of the city.

Closing his eyes he took a deep breath and listening to the old building creaked and the pat of the rain on the window panes when he heard the additional strain of another person on the old stairs.

Éponine slunk back a step on seeing the room deserted of all but the blonde man, shoving the letter she held into the top of her dress. "I am sorry Monsieur, I was looking for…"

"Marius." The man interrupted plainly, glancing at her from the corner of his eyes. It was no real guess who she was after; the girl followed Marius around to the point it was almost unseemly. He took a mouthful of his drink, leaning his head back.

"I thought he might be here."

"He is not." He replied in the same tone as before. "He is staying with Courfeyrac, though I am sure you don't need me to tell you that."

Éponine gave a frown, but did not reply, only sighing deeply she leant her head against the wall. With rain-soaked locks falling in front of her face she gave a little scowl, trying to force herself into one moment's peace in the warmth of the café before making her way out onto the rainy streets in search of Marius and her imminent heartbreak.

Enjolras saw, though he quite contently assumed that she wished to warm up before making her way back onto the streets. After a couple more moments of watching her still form on the stairs he threw his leg off the chair in front of him, kicking it back a couple more inches. "If you insist on staying," He said, talking another swig "then at least sit down. You are making the place look untidy."

She made her way over to the chair, still unsure but too worn off her feet to not accept it.

After a few minutes of the two of them listening to the rain, she allowed herself to settle into the seat comfortably, forgetting the formalities that came with being a woman. Not that she imagined Enjolras minded, not after today's events. The man was still watching the window, only occasionally taking a swig from his drink as he slowly gave into the buzzing of the alcohol in his veins.

"May I have some?" Éponine's voice broke him from his thoughts again, and she looked at him with keen interest as he handed it over to her.

She could see the alcohol creating a blushing-warmness under his checks and neck, and when given her exposed skin and soggy clothes it looked terribly inviting.

"What is it?" She said sceptically before taking a slow mouthful.

He didn't reply.

Taking another few small swigs, she offered it him back "What? Don't you want anymore?"

"Am I going to have to put a cap on the questions?" He replied harshly.

"Wasn't that a question Monsieur?"

"So was that." Irritated with the turn the pleasant silence had taken, Enjolras gave a curt sigh. "You would walk across Paris in the early hours of the morning, in the rain, with no shoes on your feet, to give the man you love a letter from another woman. Why?"

"Loyalty." She muttered, not even able to make it sound convincing.

Enjolras sighed, looking away. He had no wish to pry into something that was obviously so personal to her, nor did he wish to have her pry into his life. He lent forward on his elbows, running a hand though his hair.

"And you would sit here on your own, drinking even when you chastise your friends for doing the same?" She said softly, a smile playing on her lips as the felt the heat from the alcohol spread through her chest. Sitting herself back she looked over the empty bottles, the remnants of the groups earlier activities. "Maybe a bit of liquid courage?" She challenged.

He contemplated the words, slightly insulted by the insinuation before deciding to reply, a little more bitterly than he meant to. "If our cause is not enough to give him courage then I don't want him stood beside me."

Éponine knew that she had insulted him and quickly changed the topic, taking another mouthful of the drink. "So how many do I get? Questions… If you insist on putting a cap on I would like to know."

"I will give you eight, since you are eight in already."

Éponine smiled "Shall we say twenty?"

Enjolras gave an exasperated sigh and leant his head back.

It had been less than an hour into the already early hours of the morning when Éponine felt as if she had warmed up enough to make the journey to Courfeyrac's but however much her heart was pounding at the thought of seeing Marius, she decided to say in the comfort of the café for as long as Enjolras would accept her company.

There had been little convocation between them and it had been nice for both parties to sit in silence. Though Enjolras had been left a little restless at the prospect of being questioned he was far from wanting to kick her back out onto the streets, especially when her damp hair had just dried. The wine had calmed his anxiety soon enough, and he slid further into the chair.

"What would you have been," Éponine asked after a good quarter of an hour listening to the rain, taking another mouthful of the drink she gripped in her hand "in another life?"

"I would have finished school." He admitted, the cocktail of wine and comfort making him far more lucid. "I'm not so sure what I would do after that. Become a law man. Maybe a teacher. Not just for rich children though, all children… from little street rats like your brother to the sons of kings, if kings still insist on existing."

He looked off into one of the darkened corners, seemingly lost in thought.

For the first time Éponine saw the man, a true leader and head of a rebellion against the practise of an entire country, looked lost. She almost regretted asking when he continued to share off after several minutes, face taking on a strained expression.

In truth he was, lost between the two worlds like they both held too much importance to him to let go of either, yet so completely incompatible that he would have to choose to live without one, and he knew which one he had to give up.

"I am sorry." She said sullenly, leaning forwards in her chair. "I did not mean to make you think of it like that."

"A great change requires sacrifice. Someone needs to be willing to make it to put this country right. My life means nothing, and when I die the most I can hope to leave behind a world capable of equality and peace. I'm happy to die for that, whether it is tomorrow, next week, next year. I am just sad I might not get to see it."

Éponine struggled to find a reply to that; shocking herself by finding she understood it completely.

"What about you?" He asked, finally looking back at her. "In another life, what would you have been?"

Now that Éponine didn't struggle to answer. She knew, and that surname could have rolled off her tongue like it was the most natural think in the world. Her heart fluttered with the very thought that she could carry his surname, that she could be his… instead she answered "Someone's love."

Enjolras snorted, rolling his eyes.

"What?"

"You are wasting your life on Marius."

"More so than you are on that girl?"

Enjolras was taken off guard, staring at her intently. "What girl?"

A frown formed on her face, swallowing back any submissiveness she felt under his strong gaze. "Marius talks about it, as do the others. They talk about how much you are willing to sacrifice for her. That you are doing this all for her."

"Patria." He sighed softly.

Éponine didn't reply.

"Patria isn't a woman. She is a free and liberated France, were people are not subjugated by wealth and class. She is a France without the press of the monarchy on the backs of the poor and the burden of expense. Like I have already said, I would die for her."

"Then you should understand why I would be so grateful to die for Marius. Forgive me if I do not make sense. This is all very new to me. We can both see deep and beautiful things where others cannot."

"In the future of our country, not in the unpredictable short life of a human. How do you suppose this will end? What difference will it make?"

She smiled anxiously, unsure if she was ready to share the more intimate parts of her mind with the man that she had not conversed more than a couple of words with before this evening. Playing with the lace of her dress, she looked across the room. "Monsieur, was that two questions?"

"And that was other one for you." He replied humorously, though his face still remained stern, leant forward with his elbows digging into his legs as we waited for her reply.

Her expression dropped, staring down at her lap as she struggled to vocalise all that she had recently come to understand about her feelings regarding the aforementioned gentleman.

"He…" She stated, a little frown littering her face. "You fight for us, for me. But I still have to do a lot of things to survive. A lot of things I wish I didn't have to. Steal, hurt people, loose little bits of myself every time… When it's all over I am left in this dank place with nothing but a few francs and then, he shows up and the world becomes brighter and warmer. It is not just about equality… people are not just a part of a system, we are all individual. We need our own light too."

Enjolras swallowed thickly, overcome by her explanation. He gripped onto his trousers to stop his hands from trembling, though he wasn't sure if the alcohol hadn't had influence as well.

"Maybe it doesn't matter where we find the inspiration, so long as we use it." She continued, lost in thought. "You find it in France, I find it in Marius. You see what I mean?"

He understood, perfectly for that matter, but could not find the words to reply. "Six questions left, Mademoiselle." He stood up from his seat abruptly, walking over to the table that held a large collection of bottles before walking back to her, handing her another one.

She noted how strange he looked with the bottle in his hand and the glazed over look in his eyes. "Do you not wish sometimes, that you had the chance to be a normal young man? A regular student?" She mused.

"Four questions."

"I am being serious. Do you not wish to have a couple of nights as your friends do? You are wealth and smart and handsome… Do you not want to experience it?"

"You know Mademoiselle, in another life I might have had the chance to be a 20 year old, got drunk more, fall in love with a girl like you. In a free country where I am above nobody and nobody is above me, where all I would have to fight for is the affections of pretty girls.

"I would wonder the streets with sous in my pocket and drink until I was being heaved off the filthy streets with alcohol down my front and vomit in my hair. I would find a women and I would make love to her in some back alley until she was bored of me and I was bored of her."

Éponine watched him with wide eyes. His voice had taken a violent turn, though she didn't feel threated by it and Enjolras had become as lost in thought as he had before, brows frowning.

"Then I would be sat back at a club somewhere one night, and just before my second glass of wine I would look over and see a girl like you. The world would blur around me, and the light from all the lamps would form around you, as sure enough as the power of the sun rested in your hair… My heart would race and my hands would go clammy. I would hold out my hand to you, which you would refuse and from that moment I would know, looking into your honey-laced eyes that I wouldn't need those other women anymore because I could never get bored of someone such a match to me, an equal and I would fight every day to be worthy for you, just like how I fight now every day to be worthy for Patria."

Éponine's breath hitched in her throat as Enjolras' eyes flicked down to her lips. Nobody had said such things to her, not even as a part of some elaborate lie to get into her bed, and it was made all the sweeter by the mutual understand that he wasn't trying to.

"Is that how Patria makes you feel?" She whispered, after a moment's comfortable silence between the two. Eyes locked, heart pounding so hard it sent scorching redness into her cheeks. "Ecstatic heart, clammy hands… and overwhelming sense of wholeness as you hold up your flag, just as if you were holding a woman."

A smiled flicked over Enjolras' lips so quickly that Éponine was barely sure she had seen it at all, but she gave a small gasp all the same. Her lips parted slightly, butterflies soured down from her stomach and up through her chest, throat and out with a painfully wistful sigh which Enjolras caught with his lips.

The kiss was so simple, a few seconds of gentle contact but the effect on both of them was far beyond anything either of them could have expected.

His lips were gone before she could react, he leant inches from her face and gave disgruntled sigh like he had been violently pulled from all of those moments both real and fantasy: a world where he could hold up his flag, and a world where he could hold her on cold mornings. His living Patria, warm in his arms, a fierce heartbeat in his ears that wasn't his own.

Éponine looked up with the same glazed over passion in her eyes as she sat slowly recovering from the buzzing in her veins, her eyes flickered up to his cold ones once again. The most romantic moment she could have ever hoped to experience, in the arms of a man who carried with him the passion she had always hoped to see in the eyes of Marius. Her obtainable Marius, the light in the darkened world she lived in, staring intently into her eyes.

"Monsieur… wh…"

"You are out of questions." He went to stand.

"I only counted nineteen." She protested, gripping his sleeve to keep him in place. "Give me one more."

He looked down on it, the blankness of his expression overshadowed by the reddening in his cheeks and the shortness of his breath. "Okay." He uttered, shifting back in his seat. "One."

Éponine looked away from him for the moment, unsure of how to use her last question, knowing now with his intentions to die at the barricade that it might be the only time she could ever get such answers for him.

Enjolras was not Marius. He was distant and fierce with an underlying harshness. He was so driven that in other life he could have been born to the streets and still built his was to the top of academic and social standing. He had the capability to be a terrible person to both himself and others around him, but he wasn't, and she couldn't help but feel at ease in his presence.

There situations were so far apart from one another. She; poor and uneducated, willing to give her life for the selfish wish of being close to a man she could never have. He; wealthy and wise at the same age, ready to give his life for those so far below his rank, and for a country he will never see into it. But with him came an understanding that she had not seem from any other being.

The two sat there so contently in the comfort of their shared understanding and support, lips still electric from the soft touch of the others and hearts pounding so hard it could have shook the cafés foundations.

After a few moments of reflection her eyes flicked back up to his, still stony and focused from before. "When we die, wherever we go once we have finished our causes, and we sit back watching it all unfurl, do you think there shall be a place at your side for a woman like me?"

Enjolras smiled for the first time in her presence, not overly enthusiastically but with a soft longingness that he had been so sure he would never have had the opportunity to feel, and he nodded.

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Thanks for reading.

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